Wednesday, 29 September 2010

From XenApp 5, Installation Manager is a nice name for what is in fact a package of MMC add-ins, powershell scripts and the Windows Task Manager. The old Installation Manager from Presentation Server has basically been removed (let’s be honest, it wasn’t that great) and replaced with lots of standard Windows functionality.

Though everything is streamed, right, so you don’t need it anymore. Right? Well, just in case…

This is how to install IM on XenApp 6 and allow the management interface as a Published Application:

On all the servers to receive deployments, install IMUtilities-x64.msi

Set up a network share that IM can use as a cache

On the server that will host the admin tools, install IMAdmin-x64.msi. There is a 32-bit version as well, but if this is on a 2008 R2 server, you need the 64-bit one.

Search in vain through the Start Menu for a link to it. There isn’t one.

Start, Run, MMC

Click File > Add/Remove Snap-In

Find Installation Manager and click “Add”

You will get prompted for your network location you created earlier

Click OK and OK to finish adding the snap-in – you should return to the MMC, now with the Installation Manager appearing on the left hand side, with the file server location you specified at the end of it.

Click File > Options to finish the configuration.

Click Change Icon if you want to give it a more jazzy icon than the standard MMC one. Click Browse and find an ico file – or load C:\Windows\System32\shell32.dll which has loads in it. I went for a nice floppy disk icon from here!

Click Next and Next to confirm as an Installed Application, accessed from a server.

You actually run mmc.exe with the name of the MSC file you just created as an argument. So, if you saved it as c:\installationmanager.msc, your command would be %SystemRoot%\system32\mmc.exe c:\installationmanager.msc

Click next, add the icon to your admin users and click next again.

Click Change Icon again to find a nice icon again if you want to for your published application. Or pick a default one. It depends how much you like icons. Personally I am not a big fan of half the management apps on the farm having the standard MMC icon, but maybe I think about it too much.

Click next and finish to save the icon.

I would then edit its properties again and click the Limits tab. Set it to only allow one instance per user – a second launch will not work as you already have that MSC file open.

Refresh the application list on your client PC and you should see your new Installation Manager icon.

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About Me

I'm a thirtysomething guy from the UK working for a big company looking after lots of servers. I'm married with children who make me stop playing with computers and play trains and stuff with them instead. Quite right too.